The supply of LP gas is divided into importation from industrial gas-producing countries, and domestic production obtained as a by-product of the production process for petroleum products. Import terminals that store LP gas carried by tankers from industrial gas-producing countries, as well as petroleum refining bases, are respectively called primary terminals. LP gas is loaded onto coastal vessels and tank trucks, and shipped from primary terminals to secondary terminals, which are transit stations located along the coast or inland for LP gas shipping. Additionally, LP gas carried to secondary terminals is shipped to local LP gas filling stations, filled in LP gas cylinders at the filling stations, and delivered to individual homes and factories.
A delivery area is defined for each filling station, which acts as a delivery base. In the past, a delivery base supervisor divided the delivery area into fixed sub-areas, and assigned to each sub-area a deliveryman in charge of that sub-area.
A fixed number of deliverymen work for each delivery base. As discussed above, in the past, the delivery base supervisor divided the delivery area into fixed sub-areas, and assigned to each sub-area a deliveryman in charge of that sub-area. For example, if deliverymen 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, for a total of five deliverymen, work for a delivery base A, the supervisor divided the delivery area into five sub-areas a, b, c, d, and e, and assigned deliveryman 1 to sub-area a, deliveryman 2 to sub-area b, and so on, up to deliveryman 5 assigned to sub-area e.
When managing a delivery area in this way, a problem arises in which customers whose delivery is scheduled on the same day become clustered in a specific sub-area. This occurs because the timing for delivering an LP gas cylinder, although decided by predicting the remaining gas amount for each customer, has a consumption cycle that differs for each customer. Also, if a temporary substitute deliveryman is needed because a deliveryman takes a leave, there is a problem of how to allocate the sub-area handled by the deliveryman on leave. In this case, there is also the problem of reduced delivery efficiency due to allocating the sub-area handled by the deliveryman on leave to a substitute deliveryman who is unfamiliar with the area. Furthermore, every time there is a change in the number of associated deliverymen due to a decrease or increase in deliveryman, or every time a reevaluation of the sub-area definition is required because of factors such as an increase in new customers in a specific sub-area, the supervisor must redefine the sub-areas and reassign deliverymen into the newly defined sub-areas.
In order to solve such problems, the inventor has succeeded in providing means to conduct area management in accordance with the delivery capability of a deliveryman by dividing the delivery area of a delivery base into sub-areas according to “a delivery count rank” expressing the number of gas cylinders that a deliveryman is able to deliver in a single day. With this technology, if a delivery base A employing a deliveryman A (delivery count rank 30), B (delivery count rank 20), C (delivery count rank 20), D (delivery count rank 20), and E (delivery count rank 10) has 100 gas cylinders to be delivered in a single day, the delivery area is divided into sub-areas so that the deliverymen are assigned 30, 20, 20, 20, and 10 cylinders, respectively.
Patent Literature 1 discloses a delivery vehicle driver employee management system intended to manage delivery vehicle driver employees who are responsible for shipping. Patent Literature 1 was devised in light of the demand for not only driving services and driving-related services, and various associated services such as sales, marketing, and proposal-making in transportation business, and the objective thereof is to support efficient and appropriate assignment decisions by comprehensively grasping both the capability/suitability of each delivery vehicle driver employee as well as customer demands.
With the above technology that divides the delivery area of a delivery base into sub-areas according to delivery count rank, an appropriate setting of delivery count rank provides a stable supply of gas cylinders. If a deliveryman is assigned a delivery count rank that is above that deliveryman's capability, there is an increased risk of being unable to deliver to customers on the delivery due date. On the other hand, if a deliveryman is assigned a delivery count rank that is below that deliveryman's capability, extra deliverymen who are not actually needed are judged to be necessary, and excess costs are incurred.
Also, if a deliveryman is assigned a delivery count rank that is inappropriate for that deliveryman's capability, it becomes difficult to appropriately judge the deliveryman's capability that should be ensured for the delivery base overall.
Consequently, there is demand for a system for setting an appropriate delivery count rank expressing the delivery capability of a deliveryman.
Patent Literature 1 grasps the capability of driver employees and supports appropriate assignment decisions, particularly with the objective of suitable personnel assignment based on a performance evaluation of employees who carry out service work demanded in association with driving work, but differs from the present invention, which sets delivery capability for the purpose of a stable supply of gas cylinders.